Also, on Queens Island, stood the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory. There [is] ground for thinking that the enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. Days later a group of East Enders occupied the shelter at the upscale Savoy Hotel, and many others began to take refuge in the citys underground railway, or Tube, stations. The seeming normality of life on the Home Front was shattered in 1944 when the first of the V1's landed. For eight months the Luftwaffe dropped bombs on London and other strategic cities across Britain. Those who sought refuge at the school were told that they would quickly be relocated to a safer area, but the evacuation was delayed. Many "arrived in Fermanagh having nothing with them only night shirts". He believed that key targets identified across the city were hit. By the middle of December it had reached nearly 1,700,000 (adjusted for inflation, this was the equivalent of roughly 100 million in 2020). Because basements, a logical destination in the event of an air raid, were a relative rarity in Britain, the A.R.P. O'Sullivan reported: "There were many terrible mutilations among both living and dead heads crushed, ghastly abdominal and face wounds, penetration by beams, mangled and crushed limbs etc.". [6] It was MacDermott who sent a telegram to de Valera seeking assistance. An earlier flight on Oct. 18 allowed the crew to plot several targets in the city. Targets identified included: the Short and Harland Ltd. Aircraft Factory; the Belfast power station and waterworks; Other maps uncovered following the Second World War also showed the parliament and city hall, Belfast gasworks, a rope factory and the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. ", Dawson Bates informed the Cabinet of rack-renting of barns, and over thirty people per house in some areas.[24]. Both planes quickly proved their mettle against German bombers, and Germanys best fighter, the Bf 109, was of limited use as an escort due to its relatively short operating range. His report concluded with: "a second Belfast would be too horrible to contemplate". Learn how your comment data is processed. Video, 00:01:37, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off, Tear gas fired at Greece train crash protesters. Major Sen O'Sullivan reported on the intensity of the bombing in some areas, such as the Antrim Road, where bombs "fell within fifteen to twenty yards of one another." THE BELFAST BLITZ was a series of four air raids over Northern Ireland during the spring of 1941. The devastation was so great that the Germans coined a new verb, to coventrate, to describe it. It targeted the docks. But the RAF had not responded. There were few bomb shelters. The Premier Online Military History Magazine, Re-printed with permission fromWartimeNI.com. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Video, 00:02:54, At least 17 dead in Jakarta fuel storage depot fire. "There are plans for one but there isn't one yet. Video, 00:00:51, Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 planes fitted with Zeiss cameras captured high-quality aerial imagery. He was replaced by 54-year-old Sir Basil Brooke on 1 May. Some had received food, others were famished. [27] One widespread criticism was that the Germans located Belfast by heading for Dublin and following the railway lines north. 2. There was no smokescreen ability, however there were some barrage balloons positioned strategically for protection. This part of Belfast was the only one required to provide air raid shelters for workers. The Luftwaffe never attacked the city after May 1941, but it would be many years before life returned to normal for many in the city. At the time of the first attack in April 1941, there were no operational searchlights, too few anti-aircraft batteries and scarcely enough public air raid shelters for a quarter of the population. "Liverpool, Clydebank and Portsmouth all have a memorial to their victims of the Blitz. At nightfall the Northern Counties Station was packed from platform gates to entrance gates and still refugees were coming along in a steady stream from the surrounding streets Open military lorries were finally put into service and even expectant mothers and mothers with young children were put into these in the rather heavy drizzle that lasted throughout the evening. So had Clydeside until recently. Many in Northern Ireland thought that Belfast was outside the range of the Luftwaffe. Video, 00:01:23Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, One-minute World News. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Historical Topics Series 2, The Belfast Blitz, 2007, This page was last edited on 31 January 2023, at 20:18. Simpson shot down one of the Heinkels over Downpatrick. 55,000 British civilian casualties were sustained through German bombing before the end of 1940 This included 23,000 deaths. Has it taken bursting bombs to remind the people of this little country that they have common tradition, a common genius and a common home? The bombs caused death and destruction across the city, affecting those of all religions and political backgrounds. Although casualties were heavy, at no time did they approach the estimates that had been made before the war, and only a fraction of the available hospital and ambulance capacity was ever utilized. A modern bomb census has attempted to pinpoint the location of every bomb dropped on London during the Blitz, and the visualization of that data makes clear how thoroughly the Luftwaffe saturated the city. In the west and north of the city, streets heavily bombed included Percy Street, York Park, York Crescent, Eglinton Street, Carlisle Street, Ballyclare, Ballycastle and Ballynure Streets off the Oldpark Road; Southport Street, Walton Street, Antrim Road, Annadale Street, Cliftonville Road, Hillman Street, Atlantic Avenue, Hallidays Road, Hughenden Avenue, Sunningdale Park, Shandarragh Park, and Whitewell Road. Here are 10 facts about both the German Blitzkrieg and the Allied bombing of Germany. The Titanic was built in Belfast. The Belfast Blitzconsisted of four German air raids on strategic targets in the city of Belfastin Northern Ireland, in April and May 1941 during World War II, causing high casualties. Omissions? Poor visibility on the night meant that the accuracy of the bombers was hampered and the explosives were dropped on densely populated areas of Belfast. Between April 7 and May 6 of that year, Luftwaffe bombers unleashed death and destruction on the cities of Belfast, Bangor, Derry/Londonderry and Newtownards. The creeping TikTok bans, Hong Kong skyscraper fire seen on city's skyline. On September 10, 1940, the school was flattened by a German bomb, and people huddled in the basement were killed or trapped in the rubble. In Newtownards, Bangor, Larne, Carrickfergus, Lisburn and Antrim many thousands of Belfast citizens took refuge either with friends or strangers. When incendiaries were dropped, the city burned as water pressure was too low for effective firefighting. In another building, the York Street Mill, one of its massive sidewalls collapsed on to Sussex and Vere Streets, killing all those who remained in their homes. William Joyce (known as "Lord Haw-Haw") announced in radio broadcasts from Hamburg that there will be "Easter eggs for Belfast". 1. The Luftwaffe crews returned to their base in Northern France and reported that Belfast's defences were, "inferior in quality, scanty and insufficient". Read about our approach to external linking. It is believed that the wartime government covered up the death toll because of concern over the effect it would have had on public morale. I felt outraged, I should have felt sympathy, grief, but instead feelings of revulsion and disgust assailed me. 19.99. Up to now, we have escaped an attack, said John MacDermott, the Minister for Security, Belfast, on March 24, 1941. Three vessels nearing completion at Harland and Wolff's were hit as was its power station. In the first days of the Blitz, a tragic incident in the East End stoked public anger over the governments shelter policy. Compared to other cities, Belfast was virtually undefended. More than 500 German planes dropped more than 700 tons of bombs across the city, killing nearly 1,500 people and destroying 11,000 homes. They are sleeping in the same sheugh (ditch), below the same tree or in the same barn. High explosive bombs predominated in this raid. Thank you. [citation needed], There was a second massive air raid on Belfast on Sunday 45 May 1941, three weeks after that of Easter Tuesday. wardens, and members of the Home Guard drilling in the parks, life went on much as usual. [citation needed]. The city has been a leader in women's rights. About 1,000 people were killed and bombs hit half of the houses in the city, leaving 100,000 people homeless. Just eight days earlier, eight planes destroyed the aircraft fuselage factory and damaged the docks, with 15 people ultimately killed as a result of that raid. Corrections? The mortuary services had emergency plans to deal with only 200 bodies. . Nevertheless, for all the hardship it caused, the campaign proved to be a strategic mistake by the Germans. London seemed ablaze from the docks to Westminster, much damage was done, and casualties were high. 2023 BBC. On August 2, Luftwaffe commander Hermann Gring issued his Eagle Day directive, laying down a plan of attack in which a few massive blows from the air were to destroy British air power and so open the way for the invasion. Streets heavily bombed in the city centre included High Street, Ann Street, Callender Street, Chichester Street, Castle Street, Tomb Street, Bridge Street (effectively obliterated), Rosemary Street, Waring Street, North Street, Victoria Street, Donegall Street, York Street, Gloucester Street, and East Bridge Street. "We can still see the physical scars of the Blitz in Belfast, that is what is left. The World's Most-Famous Ship, The Titanic, was constructed here. 8. Another attacked Bangor, killing five. [citation needed], Casualties were lower than at Easter, partly because the sirens had sounded at 11.45pm while the Luftwaffe attacked more cautiously from a greater height. As well as these two major targets, other firms in Belfast produced valuable materials for the war effort including munitions, linen, ropes, food supplies and, of course, cigarettes. Some are a total loss; others are already under repair with little outward sign of the damage sustained: Besides Buckingham palace, the chapel of which was wrecked, and Guildhall (the six-centuries old centre of London civic ceremonies and of great architectural beauty), which was destroyed by fire, Kensington palace (the London home of the earl of Athlone, governor general of Canada, and the birthplace of Queen Mary and Queen Victoria), the banqueting hall of Eltham palace (dating from King Johns time and long a royal residence), Lambeth palace (the archbishop of Canterbury), and Holland house (famous for its 17th century domestic architecture, its political associations, and its art treasures), suffered, the latter severely. In just these few hours, 430 people were killed and 1,600 were badly injured. Belfast Blitz: Marking the lost lives 80 years on A force of 180 bombers dropped 750 bombs - including 203 tonnes of high explosives - and 29,000 incendiaries over a five-hour period. As of October 2020, the population of Belfast is about 350,000 people. People are leaving from all parts of town and not only from the bombed areas. The British, on the other hand, were supremely well prepared for the kind of battle in which they now found themselves. Despite the military and industrial importance of the city, the Luftwaffe described the defences asweak, scanty, insufficient. Major O'Sullivan reported that "In the heavily 'blitzed' areas people ran panic-stricken into the streets and made for the open country. That contrasts with the figure that is often given of more than 900 killed on Easter Tuesday alone. Barton insisted that Belfast was "too far north" to use radio guidance. From papers recovered after the war, we know of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight over Belfast on 30 November 1940. The Royal Air Force announced that Squadron Leader J.W.C. Video, 00:01:15The Belfast blitz, Up Next. Anna and Billy returned to England and continued running the children's home. Six Heinkel He 111 bombers, from Kampfgruppe 26, flying at 7,000 feet (2,100m), dropped incendiaries, high explosive and parachute-mines. While some of the poorer and more crowded suburban areas suffered severely, the mansions of Mayfair, the luxury flats of Kensington, and Buckingham Palace itselfwhich was bombed four separate timesfared little better. The working-class living close to industrial centres suffered more than anyone over the course of the four raids. Strand Public Elementary school, York Road railway station, the adjacent Midland Hotel on York Road, and Salisbury Avenue tram depot were all hit. "There will always be people who will slip through the net but I am able to say at least 987 were killed across all raids.". Dissatisfaction with public shelters also led to another notable development in the East EndMickeys Shelter. In addition, there simply was not enough space for everyone who needed shelter in one of the largest and most densely populated cities in the world. Sir Basil Brooke, the Minister of Agriculture, was the only active minister. A Luftwaffe pilot gave this description "We were in exceptional good humour knowing that we were going for a new target, one of England's last hiding places. Belfast, Irish Bal Feirste, city, district, and capital of Northern Ireland, on the River Lagan, at its entrance to Belfast Lough (inlet of the sea). Video, 00:00:51Australia's 'biggest drug bust' nets $700m of cocaine, Thanks, but no big speech, in Ken Bruce's sign off. One, Tom Coleman, attended to receive recognition for his colleagues' solidarity at such a critical time. Munster, for example, operated by the Belfast Steamship Company, plied between Belfast and Liverpool under the tricolour, until she hit a mine and was sunk outside Liverpool. About 1,000 people were killed during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, with Harland and Wolff among the buildings that were hit by the Luftwaffe. and Major Sen O'Sullivan, who produced a detailed report for the Dublin government. Video, 00:03:09Mapping the lives lost in the Belfast Blitz, Belfast City Hall in darkness as the Blitz is marked, Street fighting in Bakhmut but Russia not in control, Russian minister laughed at for Ukraine war claims. 150 corpses remained in the Falls Road baths for three days before they were buried in a mass grave, with 123 still unidentified. The shipyard was among the largest in the world, producing merchant vessels and military shipping. Belfast Blitz: Marking the lost lives 80 years on. The British government had anticipated air attacks on its population centres, and it had predicted catastrophic casualties. Over 20 hospitals were hit, among them the London (many times), St. Thomass, St. Bartholomews, and the childrens hospital in Great Ormond st., as well as Chelsea hospital, the home for the aged and invalid soldiers, built by Wren. The higher the German planes had to fly to avoid the balloons, the less accurate they were when dropping their bombs. After a brief lull, the Luftwaffe returned in force on February 17. Another claim was that the Catholic population in general and the IRA in particular guided the bombers. Nine were registered on three separate occasions, and from the start of the Blitz until November 30 there were more than 350 alerts. Barton wrote: "the Catholic population was much more strongly opposed to conscription, was inclined to sympathise with Germany", "there were suspicions that the Germans were assisted in identifying targets, held by the Unionist population." That night almost 300 people, many from the Protestant Shankill area, took refuge in the Clonard Monastery in the Catholic Falls Road. Over 100 German planes made contact with barrage balloon cables during the Blitz, and two-thirds of them crashed or made forced landings on British soil. [13] However at the time Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921, said: "Ulster is ready when we get the word and always will be." Authorities had noted Queens Island in the cityas a vulnerable point as early as 1929. IWM C 5424 1. Over 150 people died in what became known as the 'Fire Blitz'. [citation needed]. [citation needed] However on 20 October 1941 the Garda Sochna captured a comprehensive IRA report on captured member Helena Kelly giving a detailed analysis of damage inflicted on Belfast and highlighting prime targets such as Shortt and Harland aircraft factory and RAF Sydenham, describing them as 'the remaining and most outstanding objects of military significance, as yet unblitzed' and suggesting they should be 'bombed by the Luftwaffe as thoroughly as other areas in recent raids'[28][29], After three days, sometime after 6pm, the fire crews from south of the border began taking up their hoses and ladders to head for home. Apart from those on London, this was the greatest loss of life in any night raid during the Blitz. In the eight months of attacks, some 43,000 civilians were killed. On the 17th I heard that hundreds who either could not get away or could not leave for other reasons simply went out into the fields and remained in the open all night with whatever they could take in the way of covering. ISBN 9781909556324. ", US journalist Ben Robertson reported that at night Dublin was the only city without a blackout between New York and Moscow, and between Lisbon and Sweden and that German bombers often flew overhead to check their bearings using its lights, angering the British. He successfully busied himself with the task of making Northern Ireland a major supplier of food to Britain in her time of need.[5]. They remained for three days, until they were sent back by the Northern Ireland government. Only four were known still to be alive. The next took. Although it arrested German spies that its police and military intelligence services caught, the state never broke off diplomatic relations with Axis nations: the German Legation in Dublin remained open throughout the war. Apart from one or two false alarms in the early days of the war, no sirens wailed in London until June 25. Unlike N Ireland, the Irish Free State was no longer part of the UK. 50,000 houses, more than half the houses in the city, were damaged. The attacks were authorized by Germany's chancellor, Adolf Hitler, after the British carried out a nighttime air raid on Berlin. Just before Easter 1941, Anna and Billy Burdett and their 12-year-old daughter, Dorothy, returned to Belfast from England to visit Anna's family. The town of Dromara saw its population increase from 500 to 2,500. Few children had been successfully evacuated. Video, 00:01:23, Watch: Matt Hancock message row in 83 seconds, Isabel Oakeshott: Why I leaked Hancock's messages. Subs offer. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. So had Clydeside until recently. 9. Yesterday the hand of good-fellowship was reached across the Border. Elsewhere in the skies over Britain, Nazi official Rudolph Hess chose that same evening to parachute into Scotland on a quixotic and wholly unauthorized peace mission. Some 27 percent of Londoners utilized private shelters, such as Anderson shelters, while the remaining 64 percent spent their evenings on duty with some branch of the civil defense or remained in their own homes. James Craig, Lord Craigavon, had been Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since its inception in 1921 up until his death in 1940. As many as 5,000 people had packed into this network of underground tunnels, which was dangerously overcrowded, dirty, and dark. As many were caught in the open by blast and secondary missiles, the enormous number of casualties can be readily accounted for. With tangled hair, staring eyes, clutching hands, contorted limbs, their grey-green faces covered with dust, they lay, bundled into the coffins, half-shrouded in rugs or blankets, or an occasional sheet, still wearing their dirty, torn twisted garments. When war broke out in 1939 the city did not expect to be attacked by German bombers: it was geographically remote and deemed a relatively . When the Blitz began, the government enforced a blackout in an attempt to make targeting more difficult for German night bombers. During the first year of the war, behind-the-lines conditions prevailed in London. In the course of four Luftwaffe attacks on the nights of 7-8 April, 15-16 April, 4-5 May and 5-6 May 1941, lasting ten hours in total, 1,100 people died, over 56,000 houses in the city were damaged (53 per cent of its entire housing stock), roughly 100,000 made temporarily homeless and 20 million damage was caused to property at wartime values. The offensive came to be called the Blitz after the German word blitzkrieg ("lightning war"). Belfast was largely unprepared for an attack of such a scale as 200 German bombers shelled the city on 15 April 1941. 7. Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window), The Belfast Blitz Inside the Deadly 1941 Luftwaffe Raids on Northern Ireland, Dutch Weapons and American Independence How the United Provinces Made a Fortune Supplying Muskets in the Revolutionary War , USS Devilfish The Curious Case of the Only U.S. Navy Submarine to be Attacked by a Kamikaze, The Chinchas War Inside the Little-Known Conflict Between Peru and Spain Over Animal Turds, The Battle for Nassau Inside the First Overseas Mission for Americas Marines, Mustang vs. Corsair Inside the U.S. Navys 1944 Match-Up Between the Two Fighters, Stickin It To Em The Last of the Great Bayonet Charges, Bloody First Contact When Vikings Clashed with Native North Americans, Battlefield Stalingrad Four Maps That Tell the Story of World War Twos Pivotal Struggle. Prior to the "Belfast Blitz" there were only 200 public shelters in the city, although around 4,000 households had built their own private shelters. Guided by Davies, the people of the shelter created an ad hoc government and established a set of rules. This type of shelteressentially a low steel cage large enough to contain two adults and two small childrenwas designed to be set up indoors and could serve as a refuge if the building began to collapse. Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Miller Andrews, Northern Ireland remained unprepared. Jimmy Doherty, an air raid warden (who later served in London during the V1 and V2 blitz), who wrote a book on the Belfast blitz; Author Lawrence H. Dawson detailed the damage to Londons historic buildings for the 1941 Britannica Book of the Year: The following curtailed list identifies some of the better known places in inner London that have been damaged by enemy action. Video, 00:00:36, Tears of relief after man found in Amazon jungle. Fewer than 4,000 women and children were evacuated. Mr Freeburn set out to find out more about those who died, their personal stories and the tales of those left behind. "These people are often seen as a statistic but they were human beings, people who lived and grew up in - or moved to - Belfast and died in Belfast," Mr Freeburn, the museum's collections officer, says. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. The ill-fated ship was built in the city in 1912, and to this day, there is a museum dedicated to its building and the lives of all of those on board. Air-raid damage was widespread; hospitals, clubs, churches, museums, residential and shopping streets, hotels, public houses, theatres, schools, monuments, newspaper offices, embassies, and the London Zoo were bombed. What happened in 1941 changed the city forever. The Belfast blitz devastated a city that up until 1941 had remained unscathed during World War Two. In the subsequent years, this lack of preparation has often dominated the discussion about the Belfast Blitz, but a new project led by Alan Freeburn from the Northern Ireland War Memorial aims to shift the focus back to the ordinary men, women and children who lost their lives. German bombing of London during the Blitz, Discover how the Third Reich attacked Great Britain during World War II's Battle of Britain, atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Watch President Roosevelt outline his Four Freedoms and learn how Britain defeated Germany's Luftwaffe. For more than six months, German planes had flown reconnaissance flights over Belfast. The creeping TikTok bans. High explosives were dropped. By then 250 firemen from Clydeside had arrived. The Belfast Blitz was a series of devastating Luftwaffe air raids that took place in Northern Ireland during the Second World War. We were in exceptional good humour knowing that we were going for a new target, one of Englands last hiding places, said one pilot of the raid. Wave after wave of bombers dropped their incendiaries, high explosives and land-mines. The wartime output of the yard included aircraft carriers HMS Formidable and HMS Unicorn, cruisers such as HMS Belfast and more than 130 other vessels used by the Royal Navy.